Main menu

Monthly Archives: August 2012

The Albuquerque BioPark is a big combo zoo and aquarium and botanical gardens. We hadn’t planned to go there, but after driving through Oklahoma and half of New Mexico with nothing going on, Terry and I gave in to Benjamin’s pleas for the aquarium and zoo after he spotted the billboards along the interstate. So this was our first real “stop” on Road Trip 2012. We spent the first night of the trip at a Motel 6 in Albuquerque and then went to the BioPark in the morning.

Now I feel like I should point out, as I shall feel compelled to point out every time New Mexico comes up, there is no cell service in New Mexico. At least not along Interstate 40 from Oklahoma to Albuquerque. I realize there aren’t a lot of people out in there, but there’s cell service in Death Valley. Is New Mexico really more remote than Death Valley?

They had signs warning that the gorillas might throw things at us. This one tried, but lost his balance trying to heave a stick at us and fell into the pit that divides gorillas from humans.

All in all, the BioPark is pretty nice. There are plenty of animals and plenty of fish. They have a nice little collection of sharks and lots of rays that like to splash around in their pool. There are some sea creatures that you can touch and people to tell you about them.

There was the problem with the elephants. We barely got to see them. They have an area for the elephants where you can’t really see them, and that’s apparently where they spend most of their time. The botanical garden is interesting with large ant and spider sculptures around and an anthill maze for the kids (it’s pretty easy).

Here’s where I could go into “Zoos: Right or Wrong”, but I’m not going to. I don’t know how I feel about zoos. I know my ten-year-old loves them (as most ten-year-olds do), and we’ll just have to leave it at that for now.

Some sort of rays -- they begged us to take them with us.

The zoo and the aquarium are a ways apart, but there’s a train to take you back and forth. We didn’t want to wait on the train, though, so we just drove over.

So, that’s the Albuquerque BioPark. I like these combo sort of things, one stop entertainment (like that combo zoo theme park in Georgia where the roller coaster goes over the alligator pit). It’s a mid-size zoo and a good-sized aquarium, and the price is pretty good, $12 adult and $5 child admission.